From Bare Bones to Elaborate Sculpture

Artsy Editors

Mar 11, 2014 6:25pm

Bone has long been intertwined with artistic production, whether
it be the medium, as in Ancient Egyptian amulets, or the inspiration, as in
medieval reliquaries. Contemporary art is no different, with major artists like
Damien
Hirst, who popularized the
skull motif, and artworks like Gabriel Orozco’s monumental whale skeleton, Mobile
Matrix, a reminder of the
inherent beauty and emotional depth that bones possess. Something of a bone
collector, Jennifer Trask engages with this dialogue of bones in art through
her enchanting sculptures, made from a variety of skeletal components, from
deer antlers to rattlesnake ribs.

Trask acknowledges that her works convey “a certain romanticism
and cynicism,” yet it is this collision of material, connotation, and
aesthetics that creates the intrigue behind each work. Trained in
metalsmithing, Trask initially carved jewelry pieces from bone, and gradually,
over the last decade, experimented with scale and form. Her working method
begins scientifically; in order to achieve desired pliability for bending and
carving bones, she treats, cures, and dries them out in an alchemic mastery of
specially developed solutions and chemicals. The subsequent process of carving
and combining parts, however, is driven by intuition.

At times taking up to eight months to create a single piece,
Trask admits, “I want to make something that I believe
could be real, something that could have happened on its own.” Her luminous
white sculptures often take the delicate forms of botanicals, forming riotous,
other-worldly gardens within gilded, antique frames, or alternatively, standing
alone, as ghostly reminders of a past life. While at times Trask achieves such
skilled transformation of material that she ameliorates the material’s negative
connotations, frequently she reinforces the inherent association with death,
striking psychological, melancholic chords in a manner similar to Dutch Vanitas
traditions.